


incognizance

by mystipans



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Sleepovers, Tendou Being An Overdramatic Hoe, Ushijima Being An Oblivious Dumbass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24134848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystipans/pseuds/mystipans
Summary: You should seriously just confess your feelings directly to Wakatoshi-kun,everyone said.Tendou, he will literally never realize he might like you back unless you just tell him.Satori takes this as a personal challenge.
Relationships: Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Comments: 23
Kudos: 333





	incognizance

Satori pokes his head into the third year dorms. There is, disappointingly, no one here. Which is very disappointing. Because he will literally talk to anyone on the team about his predicament. In approximately five more minutes of having no one to lament his hardships to, he will be desperate enough to talk to the next person he passes in the hallway. Which, you know, he won’t complain about in five minutes, but he’s about ready to complain about it now.

“Tendou?”

He swings around to see Ohira, his savior, standing behind him. “I noticed you’ve looked in this dorm three times in the past…” he squints past the redhead to see the clock at the back of the wall. “Ten minutes. What are you looking for?”

“Ten minutes?!” Satori near-shouts. Well, is it really shouting if this is his normal voice? Who knows. “You watched me suffer for ten minutes?”

“Uh, I assumed you would find whatever you were looking for.” There’s a tiny smile on Ohira’s face. That bastard. After all this time Satori put in to painstakingly find a manga, or two, or seven, that he would like.

Wait. He got distracted. “I need you to help me. With advice.” He yanks Ohira into the room by the arm and lets his teammate sit down on his bed before starting to talk.

“So, I have called you here— well, I didn’t, but I think I have a crush on Wakatoshi. I don’t know what to do about it. Obviously he must feel something towards me, because—” Satori paces around the space between bunk beds as he speaks, and makes a vague gesture towards himself— “I am absolutely a catch, But the issue here is what I should do now. What do you think?”

Ohira opens his mouth, not intending to say anything.

 _“Oh,_ but there is still the question of whether or not he actually does like me. I mean, I’m good at reading people, but he’s so stoic and hard to… read. I’m normally good at this kind of thing but he never emotes! This is impossible. This is so hard.”

Ohira opens his mouth, again.

“But!”

Ohira closes his mouth, yet again.

“He’s like a brick wall! I could confess to him right now, but I wonder if he would take it wrong. Not like, doesn’t like me anymore, but he might not even know what I’m talking about. I was running with him the other day and I asked him what his type was and he said ‘someone who’s into volleyball, perhaps.’ I fit that description! I tried asking him more but he kept saying he had never thought much about it.” Satori tosses his head back and groans. “So clearly if I want anything to happen I have to be outright with it. Y’know, give him the old, straightforward confession.” He looks at Ohira.

Ohira, once more, takes a breath to indicate he is about to say something (he isn’t. This is how all of their conversations go when Satori wants help. It’s kind of remarkable, actually.)

Satori’s eyes light up and dart to the left. “UNLESS.

“If I can get him to realize his feelings for me before I confess, maybe he’ll do it first. And that would save me a lot of effort. And it would be nice to be able to get the great Ushiwaka to confess to me. I think I should do that. Hmm, no, maybe I should just confess to him outright and save time. Hmm. Yes. That’s it.” He looks at his teammate expectantly, who doesn’t even have to make it look like he has something to say before he barrels onward with his thoughts.

“Nope! It’s more fun to make him confess. That’s the one. How will I do it though…” Satori muses to himself, pausing his pacing for a minute to look at the ceiling contemplatively. “Maybe I’ll make him jealous. I’ll gush to him about some other guy and see if he realizes he wants me instead.”

 _That will not work,_ Ohira thinks to himself.

“Don’t tell me that, I’m gonna do it anyway. Thanks, Ohira!” Tendou saunters out the door. “You’ve been a great help.”

It’s 5:20, and Ohira just spent ten minutes doing absolutely nothing. With a sigh, he walks out of the dorm too to go finish his English work before practice starts.

The next day, Wakatoshi waits at the gym after school for the rest of his teammates to arrive so they can start their run. Everyone arrives within a few minutes, with the exception of Tendou. Coach Washijo tells them to just start running— the redhead supposedly started early for some reason. This is unusual, but Wakatoshi doesn’t think much of it. Tendou is, after all, very unpredictable. It doesn’t take long for him to get ahead of the rest of the group, despite Goshiki’s valiant effort to keep pace with him. Soon there isn’t really anyone in sight, and he makes it past the intersection and runs along the sidewalk next to the forest. It’s quiet.

Until, as most events involving Tendou Satori tend to go, it is not quiet.

One moment, he is running, and the next moment, there is a shock of bright red, spiked hair swooping into sight and into his peripheral vision. He slows for a moment to look at his friend. “Tendou.”

“Wakatoshi-kun,”

Tendou is making an expression. It’s different from his regular expressions, and Wakatoshi is already bad at figuring out what _other_ people mean by their faces, but this particular teammate is a complete mystery.

He hums a little tune for a minute or two before saying, “You run way too fast. I had to get a head start to catch up with you.”

“My apologies.”

“Of course you would say that. No rest for the virtuous.”

They keep running for a minute or so— Tendou begins to lag a few steps behind. “Why did you want to catch up with me?” And this seems to, somehow, put the spring back in his step. The redhead speeds up again to position himself directly in front of Wakatoshi, then turns so he’s walking backwards. Wakatoshi is forced to slow to a walking pace, he notes with mild irritation.

“I need your... advice,” Satori says carefully, “for a problem I have.”

Ah. The taller boy gives him a look and nods. He isn’t very good at advice, but if it has to do with volleyball, he’s sure he’ll be able to offer something of help.

“So there’s this person who I like.” There is another expression on his face. “They’re a very nice person—”

“You want to make friends with them?” Wakatoshi asks.

Tendou pauses to give a single snort, and then composes himself and moves aside so he’s walking next to Wakatoshi again. “No, no. I want to date them. Like, romantically,” he clarifies, watching Ushijima’s face like a hawk.

Wakatoshi nods. _I am not the person to come to for relationship advice._

“So… how do you suppose I should go about asking them? On a date or something, that is.”

He is terrible at reading people, but the odd way Tendou is watching him stands out even to him, and Wakatoshi returns the eye contact, albeit a little confusedly. “I believe you should tell this person how you feel and ask them. If they reject—”

The other boy lets out a long-suffering sigh. “I knew you would say that, Wakatoshi-kun. What do you think of me going out with someone else?”

That is a strange question, he supposes. But Tendou is unpredictable and strange. The two start running again, with the walking break giving Tendou enough energy to keep pace.

“I would not really mind,” he says, “unless it changes your ability to play with the rest of the team.”

...Wakatoshi’s skills (or his lack thereof) of people-reading have not improved since the last time he thought about them , but he can estimate that Tendou’s face is contorted into a mix of physical pain, an indeterminate degree of amusement, and some form of suffering beyond Wakatoshi’s experience.

“Always about volleyball, aren’t you? No, no, I’m not talking about that, but you wouldn’t… be jealous or anything?”

“I don’t understand.”

“This person,” Tendou starts up again, looking ahead for a moment to notice how close they are back to the school, “is very much similar to a brick wall. He isn’t the best at, say, knowing what other people mean when they talk about him. I’m not sure he would know what I meant if I, say,” his voice picks up speed as they approach Shiratorizawa, “tried to confess indirectly.”

“Then you should just—” _confess directly,_ is what he planned to finish with before Satori cuts him off with another expression on his face. Frustration, perhaps.

“I don’t even think he’d notice if I was talking about him right in front of him. He’s very stoic, too. Seems you’re both very similar, huh? Well, what do you make of that?”

They’re at the entrance to the school now. There are a few students milling around, but it’s after school, so most are in their dorms doing homework.

“This was a fun chat,” Tendou concludes, exhaling.

He runs off to the gym.

Tendou really is very strange, Wakatoshi thinks as he jogs after him.

“What am I doing wrong?” Satori laments. “Even if he didn’t get that I was talking about him, I dropped hints! Obvious hints that this imaginary guy, who is LITERALLY HIM, that I have a crush on, who is implied to be my type, is very similar to him.”

Eita snorts.

“Don’t laugh at me!”

“You think he has the capacity to think that much about anything other than volleyball?”

Satori whines. “You’re hurting me. What do you think I should do instead?”

Semi shrugs. It’s lunch, and he munches on his food slowly before he realizes that Tendou is looking at him and wants Eita to look like he’s got an opinion before continuing. He hums once to indicate he’s listening.

“Maybe if I got injured on purpose when it was just the two of us around and got him to—” Satori waves his arms dramatically— “tend to my wounds, he would realize he—”

“I think this counts as manipulation.”

“Semi-Semiiiii—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Semisemi, what should I do?”

“Well, first of all, do you even know if he’s into guys?”

“Well, I asked him that over text a few weeks ago and he said—” Satori sits up straight and deepens his voice in a shitty imitation of Ushijima— “‘I am not sure what you mean, but I don’t really have a preference between the two.’”

“You literally have no shame.”

“You’re right.”

Eita sighs. “Alright. Uh, how much do you hang out with each other outside of practice?”

Tendou actually pauses at that and groans. He pillows his head on his arms resting on the table. “None.”

“Great. So this weekend or next weekend or whatever, when we go home, invite him over with you for a weekend or something.”

“Ah, but what if I don’t know him well enough yet? I don’t know if I can—”

“We both know you will because, again, you have absolutely no sense of shame. Oh, look, he just walked in, so go bother him instead.”

Satori cranes his neck to look at the entrance where, just as Eita goddamn said, Ushijima has just walked in with his tray of food, undoubtedly scanning the crowd for someone on the team. He doesn’t have to scan much longer, because the redhead is already practically hanging off him and approximately 3 milliseconds away from chattering his ears off.

It happens about two weekends later.

“‘Ma, this is Wakatoshi from the volleyball team. Wakatoshi, this is my mother. Good? Great. Let’s go.” Satori doesn’t give either person the chance to greet each other because his mother will inevitably say something about how she’s happy he’s bringing someone over and how he hasn’t done that since, what, fourth grade, and the ace will inevitably say something impossibly polite and they will drag an unnecessarily stilted and uncomfortable conversation on for the next twenty years, and Satori really doesn’t have the time, patience, or pain tolerance for that. He has charming to get to. He practically drags Wakatoshi up the stairs of his house into his room and tosses his bag to the side, collapsing onto his bed with a long sigh, relishing the feeling of not being at practice, or having practice the next day because it’s a non-student day.

He appreciates the sensation of not standing up for a moment before remembering that Ushiwaka has the social skills of a horseradish and is still standing in the entrance, bag still over his shoulder, awkwardly looking around.

It is truly painful on so many levels for Satori to watch this man interact.

He’s kind of a masochist. It works out.

“Oh, just put your bag over there,” he makes a vague gesture at the opposite wall. “You can just sit anywhere.”

Wakatoshi dutifully places his bag against the wall, propping Satori’s bag against it too while he’s at it, and then sits.

On the floor.

By the bed.

Satori’s room isn’t large— his family isn’t particularly rich, but not poor either, so it’s about the most average room for someone his age. Most of his important stuff is back at the school dorms, anyway. His bed is against the right wall with bright orange sheets— Semi would say it looks horrible, but he hasn’t seen it (and he has no right to judge, seeing as his fashion sense is actually just the worst)— and against the left wall a few feet away is his desk, which is empty except for a small lamp and a few pencil holders. At the back he has a bookshelf filled with mostly mangas and old textbooks he didn’t feel like throwing away. Not much else is here, other than a few posters on the pale yellow walls.

However, the best part of having a desk in his room is having a chair to sit at the desk. It just so happens that Satori’s chair is the spinning type. It also just so happens that Wakatoshi, dear socially inept Wakatoshi, completely missed the cue to sit on the chair and not on the hard wood floor.

Whatever. This is fine. It’s kind of cute, too, so again, whatever.

Tendou pops up into a sitting position, leaning his lanky frame over the bed to talk to his teammate. “So.”

“Yes.”

Actual, physical agony.

“We have physics homework, right?”

“We do. I’ll go get the—”

“No, no, no,” Satori waves his arm exasperatedly. “That wasn’t an invitation to do it now.”

“Oh.” There is clear confusion all over his face. Tendou wants to pat him reassuringly.

“Let’s talk about something. Did you hear Ito-sensei decided to…”

  
A few hours pass, Satori mostly driving the whole conversation with Wakatoshi inserting his thoughts every few minutes. At some point they both find themselves on the bed, with the redhead lying on his stomach drumming his fingers on his physics work, swinging his legs back and forth in the air, his pencil fallen somewhere on the floor (he’s too lazy to reach over and pick it up) and Wakatoshi still working on his own work, back straight as ever. His family must be super traditional.

Tendou had finished his homework about fifteen minutes ago, but Wakatoshi is a much slower worker, it seems. He must make up for it by doing his assignments the moment they’re given out. Pillowing his head on his arms, Satori eyes the other boy as he does the problems. How righteous of him to do all his homework the day he gets home. Satori usually waits until the morning it’s due at 2AM to even begin.

“Did I do this one right? The answer seems too small.” he asks, and Satori springs up. He says a brief thank you to God for this opportunity, quickly sticking his face over his friend’s shoulder to see the problem.

“Hmm…….” he muses. Oh. He sees it fairly quickly— Wakatoshi didn’t convert kilometers to meters. Still, Satori mulls over the problem for a few extra seconds and, in the meantime, rests his chin on his friend’s shoulder, expertly resisting his urge to smile. “Right there,” he points at the issue eventually. “Convert your units.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Always happy to help,” Satori answers, and takes an extra minute or two staying on his perch to examine Wakatoshi correcting the mistake before moving.

  
Another few hours has them (still mostly Tendou) talking again.

_This is moving too slow._

“Wakatoshi-kun, what’s your type? I know I asked you this before, but—”

Satori’s mother opens the door. Her son curses the gods. “I’ve made dinner. Both of you should come downstairs and eat.”

“Thank you, Tendou-san,” Wakatoshi says, standing up and giving her a small smile.

Damn. Even his polite smile sends a ray of sunlight into Satori’s cold, dead soul.

Wait. Smile check. While he was talking, how many times did Wakatoshi smile?

The answer is Not Enough. He makes a mental note to fix that.

  
Satori’s mother is a nice woman, Wakatoshi decides. She’s the same height as her son, which is rather surprising, seeing as he’s already abnormally tall, and her hair is jet black and straight. It falls down to her shoulders. She has the same wild eyes as Satori, although hers are hazel while his are red. Her lips are upturned in the same way, and she walks with an energy about her. She’s wearing comfortable clothes.

“So, I hope Satori hasn’t been talking too much,” she tells him conversationally. He goes to reply, but she continues. “It’s been such a long time since he’s had anyone over. It must have been, what, fourth grade? I don’t even remember. It’s kind of hard for him to make friends, so I’m glad he found you. You seem very…” She squints at him. “respectful.”

Wakatoshi says, “Ah. Thank y-”

“Ma, he didn’t have to hear that,” Satori complains. “Are you trying to make me sound less cool?”

“Yes.”

“You’re the worst,” he declares dramatically.

“You must get it from me,” she snipes back. “Is this _that_ one from the volleyball club you told me about? The one who’s so very—”

Satori clears his throat very loudly, and she snickers. They keep talking back and forth until they get to the table, and Wakatoshi gives up trying to keep up with what they’re saying. It’s quite remarkable how quickly the both of them talk. Keeping up with one Tendou is difficult. Keeping up with two of them is nigh impossible.

There’s finally a pause in their conversation as they all start eating, when Ushijima takes the opportunity to say “Thank you very much for the food.”

Tendou’s mother blinks at him owlishly. 

“He talks!”

“Erm, yes.”

“My apologies, you struck me as the quiet type. So, how is—”

The sound of the door opening catches their attention. A man walks in, taking off his shoes and putting a laptop bag aside. He’s a solid ten or fifteen centimeters shorter than Tendou, and his spiky brown hair is short. His eyes are a dark brown so red-tinted that they almost look red themselves.

“Sorry I’m late,” he calls.

“It’s fine! We just sat for dinner,” Satori’s mother says.

Oh. This is his father.

“A guest! Hello…” he trails off expectantly. A moment passes.

Satori fills in helpfully. “This is Wakatoshi. He’s the ace on the volleyball team.”

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you. I’m going to go wash up and be there in a moment.” He shoots Wakatoshi a friendly smile and heads upstairs.

  
Satori sighs quietly. It’s about one in the morning. Wakatoshi ended up being approved by Satori’s parents, and it seemed that his mother found his social awkwardness (and lack of awareness of it) as endearing as her son did. It is, indeed, kind of cute. In a strange, secondhand embarrassment way.

Satori thinks it’s also very cute that Wakatoshi goes to sleep before ten. How health conscious of him. They had dragged out a futon, which the taller boy claimed quickly, and said their goodnights.

This causes a problem. Satori usually sleeps around three, sometimes two if he does his homework early, four if he spends too much time procrastinating.

He makes a valiant attempt to fall asleep early, he really does. But alas. He isn’t tired.

Shame.

Picking up his phone and squinting at the brightness before turning it down, he sets to scrolling through his mail for any notifications.

There are two. He reads them, and looks at the clock again.

1:19.

He checks through his messages and sees one from an old friend in middle school. He clicks on it, chatting with her for a bit, and then it happens.

She sends a video file. He opens it on instinct, entirely by accident—

And the loud sound of drums blares from his speaker. 

Shit. He forgot to turn the volume down before opening it— the last thing he had done with his phone earlier was play a video for him and Wakatoshi to watch. He switches off his phone frantically, and squeezes the button to reduce volume as hard as he can after it’s off. He holds his breath, praying Wakatoshi didn’t wake up from that.

No, he probably didn’t. He seems like a heavy slee—

“Tendou?”

Damn.

“Ah, sorry about that, Wakatoshi-kun. I couldn’t sleep, and I accidentally clicked on this video.”

“It’s fine.”

There’s a moment of silence. “Are you usually unable to sleep?”

_Yes! He’s asking questions! He’s experiencing character development!_

“Yeah. I go to sleep around three normally. I don’t need that much sleep, yanno?”

“Sleeping around seven hours a night allows for the best performance during the day, I believe.”

Satori waves his arm dismissively, even though he knows Wakatoshi can’t see it in the dark. “Nah. I get too tired when I sleep longer than five.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“That’s fine, that’s fine.”

Another pause arrives.

“Wakatoshi-kun, what’s your type?”

He thinks for a moment. “...I suppose it would be someone who likes volleyball. Someone hardworking, perhaps.” It’s quite strange that Tendou has asked the same thing multiple times. But Tendou _is_ a strange person.

“That’s it?” Satori sighs.

“Um… yes.”

“Alright. Well, I’m going to try to fall back asleep now. So.... good night again.”

  
Going to each other's houses becomes a regular occurence. About two weeks after the first time, Wakatoshi invites Tendou over to his own house and they alternate like that.

It’s lunch one day, and Reon is the first one Wakatoshi sees at the cafeteria, so he walks toward his table and sits. After a few moments of quiet eating and not looking at each other—

“So,” Reon says conversationally. “Tendou isn’t here today.”

“Yes. He told me he was sick.”

Tendou really doesn’t eat enough. Idly, Wakatoshi hopes his mother is getting him to eat more— the quickest way to get over a cold is by getting enough nutrients.

“Shame.”

The conversations between the two of them are usually short. Neither of them are the type to talk a lot.

“Hmm. Hope he’s not out for too long. Coach Washijo might actually kill him when he comes back.”

“Yes.” Ushijima isn’t really sure what to say now. Reon seems to contemplate for a moment before speaking up again.

“What do you think about him?”

“He’s… nice. Strange, I suppose. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Did you do the extra credit work in Classic Literature?”

Wakatoshi’s mother is… very different from Satori’s own.

For one, she’s very quiet and disapproving. She makes Wakatoshi look like an extrovert with how much she speaks. She has dark, straight hair, the same color as her son’s, falling just past her ears and somehow manages to make semi-formal clothes look like something you would wear to a meeting with by the way she walks. Her posture is straight and her eyes are sharp and honestly, it’s a little unnerving. But, Satori is undoubtedly the best at unnerving, so he valiantly takes the challenge of holding a conversation at dinner.

And besides, if it doesn’t work out, he can always try to out-unnerve her.

Actually, no. That would be a bad idea. She seems the type to refuse to allow Wakatoshi to visit Satori’s place anymore.

The first four visits or so, she hadn’t been home— she apparently usually worked very late and went on business trips often. She was indeed also very traditional.

“You’re on the volleyball team too, aren’t you,” she asks. It’s supposed to be a question, but she says it so flatly. At least some of his dad’s genes must have gotten to Wakatoshi, because he can, at the barest minimum, ask questions and make them sound like, y’know, questions. Geez.

“Ah, yes. I’m a middle blocker.” He smiles.

“Hmm, good.”

“Wakatoshi doesn’t invite people over often. You must be very special.”

“He’s a very good player,” Wakatoshi chimes in.

“Hmm.”

Holding conversation with one Ushijima is difficult. Holding conversation with two of them is nigh impossible. If this is the kind of interaction he has with his only parental figure, it’s no wonder he’s so emotionally deficit.

When they go back to Wakatoshi’s room after eating, Satori lets out a blustery sigh and lets his shoulders hunch forward again. Sitting up straight for that long was uncomfortable. “Is she like that all the time?”

“Yes. I’m sorry if she made you uncomfortable.”

Satori waves his arm. “It’s fine, she can’t help it.”

“We have a Literature exam on Tuesday. I think it would be useful to start studying.”

“How damn righteous are you? It’s Saturday.”

“I’m not sure I—”

“Yes, fine, I’ll do it.”

Nothing is happening.

This isn’t working.

As the Spring Tournament qualifiers approach and practice becomes more and more frequent, Satori tries everything— he runs with Wakatoshi at least half the time, keeping up with his damn ridiculous pace. He practically hangs off him whenever they stand next to each other. He drops subtle hints, everywhere, all the time, and the great Ushiwaka is oblivious to all. He even flirts with him, openly, during serve drills once. Taichi takes it upon himself to move Goshiki to the other side of the gym.

Eita laughs at him.

“I literally told you! We all told you! Just confess your undying feelings or whatever already!”

Satori munches on his rice sourly. “I just need more time.”

“More time? We’re going to nationals qualifiers in two weeks. You’re at each others’ houses every other weekend. You follow him around like a puppy and he _still_ hasn’t noticed a thing. You will literally die before he, what was it? Realizes his everlasting love for you?”

“I have literally never said that in my life.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Don’t give me that tone!”

“Mmhmm.”

“Alright, then. So let’s say he does decide he _loves you,_ who’s to say he’ll even do anything about it?”

“He’d just tell me, Semisemi. He’s really not the type to go around trying to flirt.”

“Oh, like you? Second of all, how do you know he’s not so focused on his volleyball dreams—” Satori snorts— “to even do anything about it at all?”

The redhead thinks for a moment, decides he would really rather not, and then throws the thought away. “That’s nice, coming from you. You can’t even decide whether you like Shirabu or not half the time.”

“You little—”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Satori sighs. “With your abysmal fashion sense, I’m sure you have no chance with him anyway.”

“I’m literally going to kill you.”  
  


One last attempt. One last-ditch attempt, and he’ll give in.

  
  


“Wakatoshi-kun, let’s go out together.”

“Oh. Alright,” Wakatoshi says. Tendou is rather strange. There’s only about six weeks before nationals— it seems like a strange time to go somewhere. “Where would you like to go?”

Satori’s expression lights up for a moment, then he squints. He seems suspicious.

“What do you think I mean by go out?”

“You’d like to go somewhere with me.”

A lifetime’s worth of pain flashes across his face. “Yes. Exactly. This weekend, after practice, downtown. Sounds good?”

“Yes. What do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know, hang out? It’ll be fun. Trust me.”

“Alright.”

“Bad idea. Don’t actually do that.”

Wakatoshi gives him a confused stare, which makes him start giggling. Wakatoshi smiles helplessly too, even though he doesn’t really know what Tendou is laughing about.

“Never change, Wakatoshi-kun.”

[1:02 PM] **Me:** i don’t see u here

[1:02 PM] **Wakawaka:** I’m running late. I’ll be there in five more minutes. My apologies.

Satori sighs and waits in front of a shop, switching to his manga app to idly see if there are any updates. Damn. None. He sighs again before looking around the area. He’s a few minutes earlier than when they agreed to be at this shop. He’s impatient like that— what can he say?

Miyagi isn’t exactly a big city— he’s been to Tokyo a fair few times and knows “downtown Miyagi” is practically the countryside for those city folks. The shops are sparse and there aren’t nearly as many people bustling around as he expected. Oh well. He takes a moment to let himself fantasize what could have made Wakatoshi late. Ooh, he might have been looking for the right outfit to wear. How exciting.

His phone buzzes. He reads the text from Semi, an image of a dog with its fur sticking out like it’s been electrocuted, with the message “this is what you look like” attached.

When he looks up, he scans the people walking by quickly to see, unproductively, if Wakatoshi is here— only to make eye contact with the face of Aoba Johsai’s captain, and right behind him, his ace. The captain— Oikawa, Satori remembers, approaches him, looking very confrontational. What was it— Iwa-something? follows, looking very exasperated. Satori waves amicably, flashing them a smile.

The joys of living in Miyagi. There are literally only about two places to go for fun, and everyone is always conveniently at the same one.

“What are you doing here?” Oikawa asks. He squints aggressively. Is that a thing you can do? Well, it seems to be now. Satori grins at him.

“Ah, just waiting for someone,” he answers pleasantly. “And you?”

“ _Iwa-chan_ and I are on a—”

Satori assumes he was about to say “date,” but he never gets to hear it because, of course, Ushiwaka has picked this exact moment to arrive. Satori holds back a giggle. Wakatoshi has told him, several times, about how Oikawa would have been far better off at Shiratorizawa. It seems to be one of the few things he feels very strongly about. From his descriptions of what he tells the other captain, Satori can most certainly understand why Oikawa would hate his guts.

It seems that Ushijima’s unending obliviousness has a 50/50 chance of being absolutely infuriating or strangely endearing.

He stands beside Satori, and, true to Satori’s guess, his presence alone is enough to piss both Oikawa and Iwasomething off to an impressive degree. They immediately start glaring at him, which Wakatoshi returns with his signature blank stare.

Gah, Satori can’t help it. A smile is creeping across his face. This is just so damn entertaining.

Wakatoshi blinks first, probably unaware there was even a contest in the first place. Bless his unaware soul.

“Hello, Oikawa. Iwaizumi.”

Just these three words, incredibly, tick the two of them off more. “Hello,” Iwaizumi says, sounding like he’s actively being strangled.

“It’s a shame your team lost to Karasuno.”

“Yes, it sure is.” Oikawa, on the other hand, looks like he is about to commit a strangling. Wow, Wakatoshi really is such an attention hog. Neither of the Aoba Johsai members have so much as looked at Tendou since he appeared.

This is so entertaining. Wakatoshi really has no idea what his presence does to them, does he? Their anger just bounces off his indifference like it’s nothing. Satori manages to stop smiling for a moment, and then can’t help the snort that escapes him. They’re too busy being angry to notice. Shame. It might start a fight quicker, and that would be _so_ entertaining.

Wait.

If a fight does break out… he and Wakatoshi won’t get to go out on their not-date. Which would totally slow down his plan for getting Wakatoshi to realize and confess until the next date. Satori sighs inwardly.

Ushijima starts to say, “Your talents would be better su—”

“Alright, that’s enough, let’s go, nice chat,” Satori interrupts, clearing his throat loudly. He walks between the two groups, raising his hands in a placating gesture. As much as he’s absolutely _dying_ to see them actually start a fistfight, he also has some sense of self-preservation and knows logically that he might get dragged into it too. Plus it would totally ruin his chances with Wakatoshi if he started laughing at the whole situation.

Oh, yeah, and fighting is bad. That too.

After shooting Oikawa and Iwaizumi two thumbs up, (which he hopes turned out as irritating as possible) he grabs Wakatoshi by the hand— _look at me now, Semisemi, no way he’ll be able to resist this—_ and drags him right into the café they were standing in front of.

The two of them stumble straight into the line and Satori nearly bumps into the old woman in front of him if it weren’t for Wakatoshi tightening his grip and tugging him backwards ever so slightly. Satori tamps down another grin that threatens to break across his face. That would totally make Wakatoshi let go of him. Instead, he intertwines their fingers together.

He checks to see if this has any effect on the ace.

It does not. He continues looking ahead. His face isn’t even red.

_Just how oblivious is this guy?_

As Satori contemplates what he can do to really grab Wakatoshi’s attention, the line slowly moves forward until they’re both at the front. He automatically untangles their fingers to pull out his wallet from his pocket. “Wakatoshi-kun, pick what you want. I’m paying.”

“I would feel uncomfortable if—”

“There are people behind us,” Satori reminds him. “We can discuss this outside.”

Wakatoshi purses his lips unhappily— although that’s a bit too strong of a word to describe the emotion on his face— and asks politely for a coffee. Ha. How typical. Satori asks for a frappuccino, in the smallest size they have. The woman behind the counter tells him it’s the size they usually reserve for… _younger_ children, but he waves her off and gets it anyway. He’s not that hungry, and there’s enough sugar in it to keep him going for a few hours. He also asks for extra whipped cream because he is indeed a child.

They wait to the side while someone makes their order and eventually get their drinks, then head back outside to walk around aimlessly.

“You really ought to eat more, Tendou,” Ushijima notes as they walk. Satori makes sure to steer the two of them in the opposite direction he saw Oikawa and Iwaizumi walk off in.

“Aww, you care so much, Wakatoshi-kun? Oh, how—” _romantic,_ he wants to say, but that might be a bit too on-the-nose, even for this emotionally stunted dork— “sweet. But I think the two of our drinks have the same amount of, yanno,” he makes a hand gesture— “in them.”

Wakatoshi’s brow furrows. “I don’t understand.”

“Y’know, like… energy, I guess. Your drink is a bit bigger but mine has waaaaay more sugar in it.”

“Yes, but I also have caffeine. Doesn’t that provide more energy than sugar?”

“Hmm. Not when mine has this much whipped cream on it.”

“I suppose so.”

“I was just kidding. Caffeine is better at giving you power than sugar, I think. Not as healthy for you, though.” Tendou tsk’s disapprovingly. “Never would have taken you for a person this unhealthy, Wakatoshi-kun.”

An expression of alarm crosses Wakatoshi’s face, though it is indeed the mildest alarm Satori has ever seen on anyone. He scans the area and his eyes settle on a trash can. The redhead backtracks, grinning.

“ I was just kidding again. This much coffee literally can’t hurt you.”

“No, you were right. Nationals are approaching, and—”

“Wakatoshi-kun. You’re almost done with it anyways. If you don’t want it, I’ll take the rest.” _Indirect kiss, indirect kiss, indirect kiss, indirect—_

“It would be best for you to be in top condition before Nationals as well.”

He starts beelining for the trash can. Satori sighs, plucks the cup out of his hands, and downs the rest of the coffee in two gulps.

This is— absolutely _disgusting_. Satori forgot to pay attention to the fact that Wakatoshi chose not to put any milk or sugar into it. What is he, an old man?

He grimaces at the bitterness.

The way Wakatoshi looks at him afterwards makes him smile. He chugs the rest of his own drink to wash away that disgusting coffee aftertaste and tosses them both into the trash.

“So, Wakatoshi- _kun_ , where do you want to go now?”

Wakatoshi lets him choose where to go next, which is honestly just a big mistake on his part. He books it (ha, _books_ it) to the bookstore, where he goes straight to the manga section and looks through them to see if there’s anything he hasn’t already read. Wakatoshi trails behind him uncertainly. “Hmm. You’d like this one,” Satori muses, handing back a horror manga.

“I… would?” He examines it. _This is not my style,_ he’s probably thinking. Well, if he doesn’t say it out loud, Satori has no responsibility to address it. Too bad for Wakatoshi.

“Yeah.”

“Ah, there’s only cheesy romances here. Too boring for me. I read most of these online anyways.”

He grabs another horror one he’s already finished and hands it to Wakatoshi as well, and pushes him towards the register, pulling out his wallet again to pay for it.

Wakatoshi beats him to it, forking over the money. Satori smiles. (He didn’t even have enough money for them both in his wallet in the first place.) “Awwh, you didn’t have to do that for me,” he croons as they walk out.

“I felt it was only fair after you bought both of our drinks.”

“How righteous of you,” Satori observes.

They walk around aimlessly in silence for a little while longer. Until—

“Ah, Tendou?”

The boy in question turns his head so fast he might have gotten whiplash. This is it. He’s finally realized it. He’s about to confess.

“What are these mangas about?”

Satori feels real, physical pain in his heart. He’s proud of Wakatoshi for recognizing the awkward silence and attempting to fill it. This is character development at its finest. But _damn_ if he wasn’t missing the blatantly obvious romantic tension.

  
After more walking and more conversation (mostly just Satori talking nonstop and Wakatoshi nodding like he understands) the topic finally switches to volleyball, as conversations tend to do when you’re talking to someone who spends literally all of his free time on the court.

“Do you think you’ll pursue volleyball once we graduate?” Wakatoshi asks gravely.

“You don’t have to say it like that. But nah, I want to do something else. Maybe I’ll be a reporter, so I can interview you after a match and you can tell my audience how I was your best friend in high school. That would be fun.”

“Oh. That’s a shame. You would be very good at it.”

“Ah, I know, I know. But volleyball is too much work for me. Maybe I’ll mellow out a bit more with a boring desk job,” he muses. Satori grins. “Y’know?”

“That… sounds rather unlikely for you.” _Yes. That was the joke, Wakatoshi-kun. Please catch on. You adorable idiot._

“Really? You can’t imagine _me_ with that kind of job? How shocking. What do you think I should do? I’m not in the highest college preparatory class, but this school is pretty well known, so if I keep my grades up I could probably get into a decent university.”

“Hmm. I think you could be a good editor, perhaps.”

“You just said I wouldn’t have a boring desk job, Wakatoshi-kun,” Satori tsk’s.

“You tell me about a lot of these mangas you read. I assume that with the amount of content you consume, you would make a very good editor.”

The redhead actually pauses at that and hums. “You do have a point there.”

They keep walking around. There are a fair few hardware stores around here— not living in a big city has that perk. There’s a few food places, but neither of them are all that hungry. Well, Wakatoshi-kun is probably always hungry, seeing as he has to eat twice Tendou’s body weight to keep all those muscles going, but he’s not about all this junk food. There’s one or two tech stores, but they’re both teenage boys and grossly underestimated the amount of money to bring to this little hangout, so they decide not to go in. Clothes shopping? Not really their thing. Ushijima could wear a literal potato sack and not care. He might still look good, though. Damn him with his naturally flawless skin and muscles. In the time they’re not talking, Tendou hums a little tune to himself.

There are less people around now, seeing as for whatever reason people always spend their Saturday afternoons at home. How boring of them.

“Tendou,” Wakatoshi says abruptly, and Satori sucks in a breath. 

Maybe now he’ll say it. 

He turns to face the other boy and gives him his best innocent eye flutter. He tries his best to make it seem like he doesn’t totally suspect what Wakatoshi’s about to say. And also tries to stop the victorious grin from spreading across his face. _Take that, Eita._

“Yeah, Wakatoshi-kun?”

And then, like the heavens themselves have a personal vendetta against the two of them—

Satori’s phone buzzes.

How much trouble would he get in if he attempted to murder whoever decided to call him?

Wakatoshi motions for him to pick it up.

“It’s fine, I can get it later,” Satori assures him.

“It could be an emergency,” Ushijima points out, disgustingly reasonably. Damn it.

The phone buzzes insistently again. Internally screaming curses upon the gods, Satori picks up, schooling his voice into its normal, slightly-unhinged-but-still-playful tone. He reads the caller name just before hearing the voice behind it and seriously considers homicide.

Hmm, no. That would totally ruin his chance with Wakatoshi.

“What do you want, Goshiki?” he asks, toning his annoyance down to exasperation.

“O-oh, sorry for bothering, sir! I was told you had the key to the gym!”

Of course. Of course Ushijima’s little protegé decides to call now. “Yeah, I do, Goshiki,” he answers, putting as much subtle venom into his voice as possible.

Goshiki, like his unofficial father, is completely oblivious to it.

“Coach couldn’t give it to you?” Satori asks.

“He’s not here yet.”

“Semi has the other one last I checked.”

“I can’t find him, sir.”

“And you checked in Shirabu’s room?”

“Yes, but it was locked.”

That bastard.

Satori sighs. “Go into my dorm room, it’s somewhere on my desk. If you can’t find it, just practice outside. Call me in, like, at least three more hours.”

He ends the call.

“What was that for?” Wakatoshi asks.

“Goshiki wanted the key to the club room and Semi was hiding in Shirabu’s room to force him to call me because he’s a bastard who hates me and wants to sabotage every part of my love life.”

“I thought Goshiki had his own key.”

“He had his key privileges revoked three weeks ago because he dropped it in front of the club room. He couldn’t find it because he’s blind as shit when it comes to anything other than tracking a volleyball, so he retraced his steps back to his room to find it, and in the meantime I got there, snatched the key, and waited for him to get back. He hid the fact that he lost it for three days, and on the last day when Coach himself asked for it, he started crying ‘cause someone told him this wasn’t behavior befitting of the future ace and I had to give it back,” Satori recounts wistfully.

Of course, it was Satori who told him that. But Wakatoshi probably wouldn’t infer that.

He looks very disgruntled.

Wait. “What were you going to tell me? Before Goshiki called?” Tendou takes a deep breath and readies himself once more for the confession.

“I wanted to ask how much the coffee you gave me earlier cost. I had forgotten to do so earlier.” Wakatoshi blinks.

Satori can feel the metaphorical arrow go through his heart. 

A very large amount of his incredulity must slip onto his face, because Wakatoshi furrows his eyebrows and asks if he said something wrong.

“No, no, you didn’t,” Satori waves him off. Damn it. “Give me a second.”

He turns around and walks a few paces away to take a few deep breaths, running a hand through his carefully gelled hair, displacing some of the stands he so meticulously arranged. Ohira and Semi both told him this wouldn’t work. This is fine. It was just an attempt. He takes one last deep breath and, as it always does, the realization that this whole thing was _so ridiculous_ hits.

“You know what?” he asks no one, spinning on his heel to face Wakatoshi again. He grins. “I give up. I give up. Semisemi and Ohira and literally everyone else was right. This is impossible.” He pats Wakatoshi on the shoulder reassuringly. “It’s not your fault.

“I’ve been trying to get you to like me and ask me out, but you just didn’t notice,” he explains.

Wakatoshi blinks.

He purses his lips.

His brow furrows.

This is the face he makes when he solves a problem on his math homework, Satori notes amusedly.

“Oh,” he says slowly. “That was why you asked me all those questions about the type of person I would date.”

“That’s it?!” Satori bursts out. “God, I don’t know how I expected you to confess to me.” He lets out a single snort, which turns into two, and then he’s full on wheezing, laughing. This is so fucking ridiculous. This is stupid.

When he looks up, Wakatoshi is giving him a very uncertain smile.

“Wakatoshi-kun, do you want to kiss or something? Or like, go on a date?” he amends quickly, when he sees the mild bewilderment on the other boy’s face. Well, every emotion on his face is mild. This is actually pretty emotive on the Ushijima Scale Of Expressiveness.

And then he does the unbelievable.

Wakatoshi smiles again, of his own volition-- it's small, and still uncertain, but it's there. Satori's heart does at least four somersaults.

“Alright.”

**Author's Note:**

> take a shot every time i use "..." kdjngkndg
> 
> But thank you for reading!! Feel free to leave a comment about what you thought about this fic! I hope you have a wonderful day/night <3


End file.
